Hod b'Hod

I have few words on this concept so I will leave you with these and those of others. 

Everything starts at home. 

Netzach b'Hod

Endurance in Humility. Humility has a certain self-sustaining quality about itself. Being humble is a lot of work but it helps you to build up endurance for the even tougher parts of life. As some of us know, human lives are very fragile. I think the responsibility is on us to remember the frailty of life and to show the resilience that we possess. We are constantly replenished and are continually empowered to make an impact. Listen closely to the words of this song.

Tiferet b'Hod

The world is a big and scary place. When I think about it I sometimes feel a little depressed. However I think the harmony and compassion in humility is what helps me and others continue through this pain. We have learned that it isn't about always focusing on the negative in the world. Humility is about learning that negativity has it's place to balance out the good in the world. Without the negatives we would not know what the good is. Even when we are pushed to our limits we can go a little further when we give a little help to our friends.

Gevurah b'Hod

Discipline and restraint are not the first things that come to mind when I think about humility. However the more that I thought about it, the more it began to make sense. Every person that I can think of as humble is someone who practices discipline and restraint regularly. Discipline and restraint in humility to taking everything in its stride and not rushing through it. Everything is a journey and there is beauty in it, no matter how tough it is.

Chesed b'Hod

Chesed b'hod. Loving-kindness in humility. Recognizing when your strength comes from others. 

Malchut b'Netzach

I don't even know where to begin with sovereignty and leadership in endurance. One aspect of this that I want to put on your radar is how this relates to things like the tour-de-France. To be a part of this experience there is a tremendous amount of endurance required. However if you want to win there is more required, you must set for yourself a leader or rise to the challenge yourself. Endurance requires pacing yourself much like a marathon. This is extremely important in the group setting because you will loose membership if they feel you can't adjust to meet their needs. Knowing the pace of the organization is extremely important because sometimes you need to momentarily break from the culture to prioritize yourself and your goals.

Yesod b'Netzach

What do bonding and endurance have to do with each other? More specifically how do we find bonding in endurance? It was not very obvious to me. I kept thinking about endurance in bonding. When we are bonded together we can endure almost anything, no one can dispute that. I think that we sometimes also bond over the ideas of endurance in our lives. The endurance in this case is a collection of our habits, our rituals. If you're a person who runs regularly and generally sticks to the same route, you've probably developed a connection, a bond to most of the things you see on your path. Likewise, if you frequent a coffeeshop or dog park you have likely bonded with those you have met there. If you are enduring in your commitments in life you can develop many new relationships and strengthen others. For me this is the essence of yesod b'netzach, bonding in endurance.

Hod b'Netzach

Humility in endurance. Because I don't want to say more than is needed on the topic I will try and stay brief. When I think about humility in endurance, I think about those among us who celebrate anniversaries. The celebrate lasting another year in a field, relationship, or even in the strength of recovery. For many of these people they don't need to make a public display of this achievement but they do mark it. They are marking the passage of time, acknowledging the holiness and wonder that is time and its passing. This is an important part of our Jewish tradition as well. How many different Jewish rituals can you name that have to do with time? It's harder for me to try and create a list of those that don't. From a baby's naming to bar/bat mitzvah and from holidays to mourning, we have Jewish rituals that tell us how that time should be spent. Endurance requires that passage of time and humility is demonstrated by the actions of a person. As we are counting the days to Shavuot, the days of the Omer, we get to think about and reflect on humility 13 times and in 13 ways. That's nearly 302.9 trillion possible combinations of how to observe humility during the Omer. Sounds like you'd need a little endurance to do what. In the words of the song below, dona nobis pacem, grant us peace.

Netzach b'Netzach

Endurance inside of endurance. This evaded me for a long while. I believe the central concept here is that mindset of compound interest rates. At first, you're probably asking yourself, what the heck does this have to do with Judaism. The principle and correlation is pretty simple. Compound interest can work in your favor or against you. The interest accrued grows more and more rapidly as time passes. Why? Because the interest you earn is added to the principle that you are earning interest on. This is great if the interest you earn is profit, not so much if this is a loan that you have to repay. I believe this holds true in our lives for the torah that we practice. The more time and energy that we invest in developing our torah to be a light in our lives. The torah we practice in our lives can range from doing good deeds in your community to studying Torah. Certainly, if we don't practice torah in our lives we can't see the world improve. In order for the world to improve we must actively practice tikkun olam (repairing the world) and tzedek (justice). This means the responsibility is on us. When we take the first step we can then inspire others to join in and stand up for what is right. Then momentum builds and we see this compound interest take effect and we have started a movement.

Tiferet b'Netzach

YOU MAY BE TRIGGERED BY THIS POST. PLEASE BE AWARE.

"What the world needs now is love sweet love. It's the only thing that there's just too little of." That is definitely the theme for tonight. Harmony and compassion in endurance is what the people of Baltimore need to see and experience right now. The way for a community to build endurance is to come together in harmony and show compassion to others. Our Jewish tradition teaches us the value of a life. It teaches that to save a life is to save the entire world. Although the actions of certain individual police officers across the country are deplorable we have to remember that there are also good people who are also in uniform. We must remember that institutions are the things that need to change, undergo a real change. We must remember that even our great ancestor, spiritual leader, Moses engaged in dialogue with Pharaoh to get the freedom of the Israelites. Did it happen overnight? NO! However we must remember that G-d hardens Moses heart and that G-d was the one who rained plagues down on the Egyptians. In this story the Israelites took everything that was thrown at them, knowing that someone was fighting on their behalf.

We need to remember that violence begets violence. Hate begets hate. I know some may not have thought of this in this manner and maybe there will be some disagreement over this but I will say it anyway. If we look at most of the wars in history, especially the world wars. Of course if we look at historical reasons we can find other justifications for these wars but the underlying factor for them was hate. If the world community had come together in harmony and displayed compassion to each other they would have endured the hard times and been made stronger for it. Instead the victors of these wars decided to harbor hate and avarice toward the original aggressors. This ill will of course lead to a desperate people being vulnerable and grasping for hope where they could find it. I of course am speaking on Germany between the world wars. Would treating them with respect and compassion have prevented the tragedy of the Holocaust? I don't know, but I do think it would have been a very different climate in world then and today. I am not trying to relate the plight of the black community to that of the Jewish struggle of the Holocaust but I do want to mention that they have a similar root.

The song below shows how we should be responding to these different issues across the country. We must first, before turning to social media to blast people, take a moment and think. What is my role in this? What is the privilege that I have that might cause any good intentions I might have to be perceived as insincere? Do I have the full picture and know everything that is going on? What can I do personally to be an ally to the community? We must start with ourselves. If we set examples of violence and mistrust then we of course will see that manifested in our communities. If we show displays of love, harmony, and compassion we can endure and overcome any troubling time that we may face. Do not give justification to those that ignorantly destroy and harm. We must teach them their actions have consequences and that we can accomplish so much more when we work together in harmony. You catch more flies with honey that with vinegar.

Gevurah b'Netzach

Gevurah b'netzach is discipline and restraint in endurance. We should live our lives as if we were running a marathon. Always replenishing ourselves so that we can last through the journey.

Chesed b'Netzach

Learning Torah is something that reminds me a raising a child. Neither is something that you can spend 1 day doing and be finished. Both are things that require a lot of effort in the beginning to feel comfortable. This is chesed b'netzach in our lives. We grow so much from the labors of love that we embark upon.

Malchut b'Tiferet

Leonard Bernstein was a great composer and conductor. When I think of malchut b'tiferet I think of the conductors, CEOs, and heads of state. Sovereignty and leadership in harmony and compassion is exemplified by the people a leader surrounds themselves with. A pyramid is only as strong as the blocks used to build it. The same is true of any organization, company, orchestra, or any other group. It's not just about the team working together to accomplish a common goal. It's also about the drive to be the best, to continually challenge each other. To push each other further, always bettering themselves. You need someone to challenge you, to not settle for mediocre. To be the best means to compete against the best and be surrounded by the best. Sometimes you need a leader who is a little unorthodox to get you to that point of success. You always need a leader with a vision if you want to succeed, however, never be afraid to challenge that vision. A good leader needs to be challenged and should welcome that. If they don't then how can they really be the best?

Yesod b'Tiferet

Yesod b'Tiferet, bonding in harmony and compassion, to me is the perfect example of the Jewish experience. We as a Jewish people share a collective story and experience. We have bonded through our history of bondage and persecution. Even though we may not have personally been through this trial we feel it through the holidays and the stories we share. Out of our collective stories we make a beautiful tapestry that educates and informs our future. We strive to create a harmony that inspires and fills our soul. As a people our experiences bind us together like the fabric of cloth we wear to keep us warm. Give back to a organization in your community to help strengthen the bond you and those around you share.

Hod b'Tiferet

I don't really have too much to say about humility in harmony and compassion. The only think that really comes to mind is the idea of "if you love something you have to let it go." Here's the cliche:

Netzach b'Tiferet

Endurance in harmony and compassion. I believe this video is a pretty literal musical representation of it. I would related this idea to another concept as one. The idea of learning for the test as opposed to actually learning the material. Endurance in harmony and compassion is learning the material to truly understand the nuance of topics and materials that are crucial for their mastery. This is relevant in our Jewish lives as well. Through continued practice of ritual we understand the nuance attached that allows us practice it fluently in our lives. This understanding allows us to create harmony and meaning in our everyday Judaism that is personally uplifting and motivating. The enduring commitment to Jewish life comes from this principle. We promote harmony and compassion that is sustains and enhanced by endurance.

Tiferet b'Tiferet

Harmony and compassion of harmony of compassion. I think about the Jewish prayer Mi Shebeirach, specifically I will be referring to the Debbie Friedman Reform melody. This prayer is one for healing. To me there is something super meaningful and powerful in coming together as a community and uniting for a cause. We share the names aloud or to ourselves and then join our voices together to heal our loved ones and the loved ones of our community. How beautiful is that? There is something to be said of cacophony. Although this term is used to mean sounds that conflict and aren't pleasant sounding I want to offer a different perspective. Everyone individual sounds coming together under the same need and desire creates such a beautiful melody that no one can ignore it. Sometimes we focus to much on traditional standards of beauty to appreciate the nuance of difference.

Gevurah b'Tiferet

When I think about gevurah b'tiferet I think about the story of the Israelites in the desert. The Israelites were told to trust that G-d would provide for them. This required the Israelites to act in a way that required discipline and restraint in order for them to live in harmony. If any of the Israelite's doubted G-d and collected more manna or quail then they needed it would spoil for the next day. There was no need for greed in this society. I think to how they were also so concerned for water, again doubting G-d and that disrupted the harmony they felt and the compassion they showed one another. This effected everyone. The less the discipline and restraint practiced the less the harmony and compassion people experienced. Think to the Garden of Eden, a utopic society. Everything and everyone lived there in perfect harmony until someone forgot restraint. What does this have to do with today?

In our lives today we need to remember that sometimes discipline and restraint allows us to live in harmony and can be an act of compassion. By restraining from overspending we are able to save and could take exciting trips and stimulate the economy locally or globally. This spending allows someone else to have a job. However we should be display discipline and be responsible in our spending as to not promote sweat shop labor or other unfair labor practices. By doing this we promote a world that allows everyone to live a life in harmony and give the world compassion through the idea of tikkun olam (repairing the world). By practicing the discipline of meditation we work to keep our stress levels down and promote harmony in our body freeing us to be compassionate to others in our lives. The cycle goes on and on. The moral of the story is let's be good to each other and ourselves.

Chesed b'Tiferet

Instead of writing a long post today, I will leave you with a few words and a few songs. 

Inspiration. Love. Harmony. Dedication. Longing. Communication. Respect. As I sit and think about these ideals, chesed (loving-kindness) and tiferet (harmony and compassion) those were the things that came to my mind. 

Really listen to the words to the Backstreet Boys song. There is a lot there. 

Malchut b'Gevurah

So today's blogpost is also camping inspired since I'm currently camping. The idea of malchut b'gevurah is very interesting as I ponder it in nature. For anyone to survive in the wilderness it takes a great deal of discipline and restraint. The discipline of completing all the necessary tasks to last in the wilderness, the restraint to ration your food and water. Sovereignty and leadership are also something that are extremely relevant to nature and Judaism. Often in our current culture we will send people on camping trips, either with some form of scouts or other outdoor education community program, to instill these skills of leadership and independence.

We see this in our tradition as well. Many of our great leaders go into the wilderness to find meaning or enlightenment. I think back to the different trips to Israel that I have been on or lead. The Hebrew word for desert is מדבר, midbar, very similar to the word for to speak, medaber, מדבר. This isn't a coincidence, nothing in Judaism works that clearly. In order to experience malchut b'gevurah you need to experience the voice of the desert; in order to find that idea of self, your connection to peoplehood and community.